Film inspires recovery classroom pilot project in Hamden

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10:16 pm EDT, Friday, September 9, 2016

Jeff Reilly of Guilford and Greg Williams of Danbury co-produced and co-directed the documentary “Generation Found,” a film that follows high school students through their journey at Archway Academy, a recovery high school located in Houston, Texas. less

Jeff Reilly of Guilford and Greg Williams of Danbury co-produced and co-directed the documentary “Generation Found,” a film that follows high school students through their journey at Archway ... more

Photo: Photos Courtesy Of Greg Williams

Photo: Photos Courtesy Of Greg Williams

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Jeff Reilly of Guilford and Greg Williams of Danbury co-produced and co-directed the documentary “Generation Found,” a film that follows high school students through their journey at Archway Academy, a recovery high school located in Houston, Texas. less

Jeff Reilly of Guilford and Greg Williams of Danbury co-produced and co-directed the documentary “Generation Found,” a film that follows high school students through their journey at Archway ... more

Photo: Photos Courtesy Of Greg Williams

Film inspires recovery classroom pilot project in Hamden

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HAMDEN >> After watching teenagers’ educational success be affected by the temptation of drugs and alcohol, the Children’s Center in Hamden is working toward establishing a recovery classroom that helps students commit to a sober lifestyle.

The center — which is a private, nonprofit agency for children and teenagers who struggle with emotional, behavioral, psychological and social problems — started its pilot project two months ago with the goal of creating a school environment that offers peer support and services for addiction year-round.

“We have been working on this initiative to see if we could get funding to start a recovery classroom for six to eight youths and we are trying to do that in January,” said Dan Lyga, chief executive officer of the Children’s Center in Hamden. “What we learned as we began to explore the idea of a recovery school for Connecticut was that there are a lot of folks who are trying to advocate that the state of Connecticut develop a recovery school service. Over the last couple of years, there has been some legislation that has been proposed, but has not been successful.”

But in order to launch the pilot project, Lyga said the operation is estimated to cost approximately $250,000 to $300,000. And because mental health and addiction services have been cut amid the state’s attempt to close a nearly $1 billion deficit, Lyga said the center will rely on private donations to fund the initiative.

“We have learned more about other folks who have been trying to advance this idea of having recovery schools in our state. We have been really strengthened by the number of folks out there who are trying to advocate for us and really support this idea,” Lyga said.

Sarah Lockery, chief administrator of community services at the Children’s Center of Hamden, first initiated the pilot project as a way to provide teenagers who struggle with addiction the opportunity to graduate from high school.

“When you look at an adult who starts to use and hopefully finds his or her way into recovery, if they have graduated from high school and have established themselves, the opportunities are greater than a youth who starts to use. Because of that use, (the youth) has not been able to finish high school,” Lockery said. “That has to be an enormous burden for people and hold some folks back. We really see the ability to graduate from high school as a huge factor in helping teenagers become adults who can thrive.”

But because teenagers begin abusing substances at a younger age, Lockery said it is vital to intervene at an earlier stage.

“When I first started working here at the agency 25 years ago, when youth were coming in for their evaluations, they were 14 years old. For some of those kids, they had only been using for about one month or even six months to a year. Now what we are seeing, 25 years later, is that when kids are coming here for their evaluations, they are about 16 years old and they’ve been using for a lot longer and within those few years, they have experienced a lot more negative consequences,” Lockery said.

By providing teenagers with an environment to receive an education without the temptation of drugs and alcohol, Lockery and Lyga both said they will have the opportunity to find success.

“Many of the youth whom we have dealt with in the past, who have had a substance abuse issue, many of them have struggled in their schools and have oftentimes dropped out or missed classes or lost credits,” Lyga said. “I read (an article) recently that youth completing a substance abuse program, 99 percent of them are offered drugs their first day back to school. That is a statistic that is pretty concerning and it really argues for the need to create these kinds of settings that kids who are really making a genuine effort to get their lives back on track and we can help them with that effort.”

Lockery said she was first inspired to establish a recovery classroom in Connecticut after seeing the documentary “Generation Found,” which was co-produced and co-directed by Guilford resident Jeff Reilly and Greg Williams of Danbury.

“Generation Found” follows the students of Archway Academy — a recovery high school located in Houston, Texas — as they navigate their way through their teenage years while leading a recovery lifestyle.

Archway Academy started 13 years ago in the basement of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, with one staff member and six students after a community grew tired of watching teenagers lose their lives to drugs and alcohol. Now, the school has become a model for states across the country on how to address teenage substance abuse.

Since Archway Academy’s inception in 2003, there are now 36 schools — out of 56,189 high schools in the United States — committed to teens in recovery, according to Reilly.

“We just put a lot of expectations on teenagers. There is so much that is going on with them physically and mentally that is developing when you are a teenager, so to add on the extra you struggle with addiction and now you are in an environment where all of your other friends and peers are experimenting, it must be really difficult,” Reilly said.

Through this film, Reilly and Williams said they are able to honestly depict the struggles of living with addiction — a battle Williams knows firsthand.

Williams was 17 when he first entered recovery, and for the past 15 years, he has maintained his sobriety by receiving the treatment and support needed to fight his substance abuse addiction.

“I struggled through my adolescence,” Williams said. “I realized I had a problem and through that treatment process and through the various kinds of support, I have maintained my recovery since.”

While Williams was able to enter a recovery treatment program, he was not given the opportunity to attend a high school or college dedicated to students in recovery. “Getting into recovery at 17 and then getting into this kind of work and researching it more, I met a lot of young people who had graduated and they got involved at a national level in these advocacy roles and were alumni of these recovery schools. Being from Connecticut, I had no idea about (recovery high schools),” Williams said.

After receiving treatment, he enrolled in Quinnipiac University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in media production. His first feature film, “The Anonymous People,” about the 23 million Americans living in long-term recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, debuted in 2013.

“When we were making ‘The Anonymous People,’ during part of that film we went to Boston and visited a (recovery) school there,” Williams said. “For an 84-minute film, that 5 minutes became the most talked about section.”

Three years after Williams and Reilly launched “The Anonymous People,” “Generation Found” premiered.

The film, which opened worldwide on Aug. 30, is distributed through Theatrical On Demand, and allows anyone to request a screening at their local theater. Through this grassroots outreach, the film is slated to be screened in approximately 140 theaters nationwide. Since its opening, 8,858 tickets have been reserved.

But for Reilly, this is just the beginning of a revolution.

“Every pitch call, we used to say ‘It is what it is, and we are staying genuine to what has happened.’ … We are not interested in manipulating anything. You don’t need to stigmatize addiction more than it’s already being stigmatized. There is plenty of drama there because people are struggling,” Reilly said. “It gives the community very real answers to very real problems.”

“Generation Found” demonstrates how a system of treatment centers — from sober high schools to alternative peer groups to collegiate recovery programs — can allow for early intervention and provide teenagers with long-term solutions.

“Ninety percent of all addiction starts in adolescence. It really is at its core, a pediatric health crisis. Addiction starts and can end in adolescence if we are not aggressive about how we intervene in young lives,” Williams said. “‘Generation Found’ is a film about possibility. There are 22 million Americans suffering from addiction. Most of us have seen that in our newspaper blotter and police blotter, front pages and headlines on the news media. … The story that hasn’t been told is that there are more people living in recovery than those who are currently suffering.”